From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Thu, 23 Nov 1995 16:13:45 -0500 From: Jeff Bryer jeff-p9@watson.mbb.sfu.ca Subject: Install help please Topicbox-Message-UUID: 368e21e4-eac8-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 Message-ID: <19951123211345.izO8eEyvjb4BbbqIAwGbfWEgvlIQFORylJ19h2Hcafs@z> Hello all, I just joined this list a day or two ago and I'm really new to the whole concept of Plan9. I actually found out about it a week ago, discovered that our University had a license for it and yesterday I started installing it. For background on myself, I'm fairly familiar with SunOS 4.1.x and Solaris 2.x both as a user and an administrator. I'm learning that's there's a substantial amount different with Plan9 but it has some really great ideas. What I want to do is to install Plan9 on to our SparcStation 2. The Sparc2 will run Plan9 exclusively. I also want to put it onto a couple of PC's but they will primarily run DOS (not my choice) so they will only boot Plan9 when I want to play with them. I don't have any other machines to put Plan9 on (and the Sparc2 will be the only one running it all the time). After spending quite a bit of time, I've managed to get Plan9 unpacked off the CDROM onto one of my 486DX-33s. I should say that I'm using the 4 disk set off AT&T's Plan9 WWW site and 1995 CDROM. First I discovered that the Adaptec 152x was not supported. (My CDROM is SCSI.) (When will the 152x be supported?) So I pulled a 1542b out of another system. After a few hours of messing around I discovered that Plan9 didn't like that card either (Bios v3.10 from 1988 - maybe it's too old??). I then stole a 1542c out of another system and that worked fine. Except that the 497MB IDE hard drive that I had intended to put Plan9, I discovered wasn't big enough. The install procedure complained that I needed to free another 26MBs. The drive was completely empty (no partitions even) so there was no way I could make it bigger. So I moved to yet another machine that had a SCSI hard drive (640MB) that was until yesterday running Win95 (I was more than happy to replace Win95 with Plan9). So after having to open 4 systems, I do have Plan9 working a 486DX-33. I haven't done anything with setting it up as a CPU server or a file server. I don't think I should do that seeing as how I won't be using these as Plan9 systems all the time, correct?? I'm a bit unsure how to progress now. I know that I need to boot my Sparc via the net off of the PC install server. And to do that I need to edit the /lib/ndb/local file. I have figured out sam enough to edit a copy of the file but I don't understand how to get authorization to write a file to /lib/ndb (I'm logged in as tor). I understand that there is no concept of a superuser but I'm at a loss how to gain authorization. Do I have to convert the PC into an authenication server? Do I need to wipe my filesystems on my Sparc or will the Plan9 installation overwrite them (I only want Plan9 on the Sparc - is it even possible to have Plan9 and SunOS (or Solaris) to coexist on a Sparc?)? I also want to install Plan9 on to the 486DX-33 that I first tried to install on (the one with the 497MB IDE drive) over the net from the SCSI PC install server. If anyone can help me out (pointers to places in the manual, pointers to other places, instructions), thanks alot. Jeff Jeff Bryer | "Maybe VR.12 turns you into Fabio." jeff-p9@watson.mbb.sfu.ca | -Duncan in Parallel Lives (VR.5)